Reduction in Corrective maintenance Time

Reduction in corrective maintenance time is useful to improve maintenance effectiveness. Some strategies for reducing the system-level corrective maintenance time are as follows.

1.       Efficiency in fault recognition, location, and isolation: Past experience indicates that in electronic equipment, fault isolation and location consume the most time within a corrective maintenance activity. In the case of mechanical items, often the largest contributor is repair time. Factors such as well-designed fault indicators, good maintenance procedures, well-trained maintenance personnel, and an unambiguous fault isolation capability are helpful in lowering corrective maintenance time.

2.       Effective interchangeability: Good physical and functional interchangeability is useful in removing and replacing parts/items, reducing maintenance downtime, and creating a positive impact on spares and inventory needs.

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3.       Redundancy: This is concerned with designing in redundant parts that can be switched in at the moment of need so the equipment/system continues to operate while the faulty part is being repaired. In this case the overall maintenance workload may not be reduced, but the equipment /system downtime could be impacted significantly.

4.       Effective accessibility: Often a significant amount of time is spent accessing the failed part. Proper attention to accessibility during design can help reduce part accessibility time and, in turn, the corrective maintenance time.

5.       Human factor considerations: Attention paid to human factors during design in areas such as readability of instructions, size, shape, and weight of components, selection and placement of dials and indicators, size and placement of access, gates, and readability, and information processing aids can help reduce corrective maintenance time significantly.